The Captain
CCF Mod Squad
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Post by The Captain on Jan 11, 2018 15:18:43 GMT -5
Started reading Luke Cage, Power Man again from where I left off last year at issue #33. First up was a three-part story with Cage facing off against Spear, a man with a vendetta against Luke's friend, Dr. Noah Burstein; also in the mix was The Mangler, a brutish fighter wearing a mask like a wrestler. It was interesting in that Spear seemed to be consistently one step ahead of Luke, which gave the story a little something more than just Luke punching his way out of a problem, but at times, it seemed like Spear was just a little TOO good. Next up is a rematch with Chemistro, but when I sat down to read it, I found, for the first time ever in my collection: Sweet double cover!! I've owned this book for probably close to 10 years and didn't even notice it when I bought it or re-bagged it. Nice little surprise for me today.
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Post by badwolf on Jan 11, 2018 15:42:16 GMT -5
Started the Doctor Strange Omnibus Vol. 1 by Lee & Ditko.
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Søren
Full Member
I trademarked my name two years ago. Swore I'd kill any turniphead that tried to use it
Posts: 321
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Post by Søren on Jan 11, 2018 16:46:06 GMT -5
Prog #1001 of 2000 AD from 1995? I think. I have a few old issues i found and brought and wanted to go through them to find Durham Red stories since she making a comeback in the new comics soon. Never got to read the character much before.
Treasures of Britain starts in this issue with Saline too which is cool.
And it has a trading card in the front of Chopper, not sure why but it's nice lol guess maybe they were given away at the time.
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Post by Hoosier X on Jan 11, 2018 17:07:19 GMT -5
Started the Doctor Strange Omnibus Vol. 1 by Lee & Ditko. Steve Ditko's Dr. Strange is one of my top candidates for BEST COMIC BOOK SERIES EVER!
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Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
Not Bucky O'Hare!
Posts: 10,057
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Post by Confessor on Jan 11, 2018 19:40:53 GMT -5
Started the Doctor Strange Omnibus Vol. 1 by Lee & Ditko. Steve Ditko's Dr. Strange is one of my top candidates for BEST COMIC BOOK SERIES EVER! I don't know about best ever, but it is extremely good. I think it's the best thing Ditko's ever been involved in...after Amazing Spider-Man, of course.
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Post by Hoosier X on Jan 11, 2018 20:10:05 GMT -5
Steve Ditko's Dr. Strange is one of my top candidates for BEST COMIC BOOK SERIES EVER! I don't know about best ever, but it is extremely good. I think it's the best thing Ditko's ever been involved in...after Amazing Spider-Man, of course. Ditko's Spider-Man is the other top candidate for BEST COMIC BOOK SERIES EVER!
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Post by dbutler69 on Jan 12, 2018 12:40:42 GMT -5
I read Thor #132 & 133. Thor kicks the Rigellian's butts, saving earth from Tana Nile's space lock, then he goes and defeats Ego, saving Rigel! A pretty good two issues' worth for the big guy.
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Post by Hoosier X on Jan 12, 2018 14:01:15 GMT -5
I read Thor #132 & 133. Thor kicks the Rigellian's butts, saving earth from Tana Nile's space lock, then he goes and defeats Ego, saving Rigel! A pretty good two issues' worth for the big guy. Tana Nile is awesome! I love that bit where she's going around New York, ordering everybody around and telling them she's the Empress Tana I, ruler of the entire planet, and all these New Yorkers are rolling their eyes and saying "Sure, lady, sure!" and just going along with it. And Ego is just AMAZING!
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Post by String on Jan 12, 2018 14:16:03 GMT -5
It sounds right to me. Magneto gets around, maybe not as much as Doom does, but he appeared outside of the X-Men comic as early as Journey into Mystery #109. He fought the Avengers in an Avengers/X-Men cross-over during the Silver Age. And getting into the Bronze Age, he appeared in The Fantastic Four and the Defenders and Captain America and probably elsewhere, as well as continuing to face the X-Men in their own comic, and the Beast in his Amazing Adventures series during the X-Men hiatus. But I can't think of when he might have met Doom prior to the SCTU/Champions cross-over. FF would be the most obvious place but I don't remember them meeting there ether. I did read that Magneto + Sub-Mariner story in FF #102-105, or somewhere around there and liked it a lot when I was a kid. Perhaps this is just an indication of how young the MU was back then - they hadn't yet had time to go through all the obvious team-ups and battles between even the more prominent characters. Interesting. This would be around the same time leading up to the X-Men becoming reprints too, correct? If so, it may be that Magneto was not a 'popular' enough villain to warrant such a collaboration till this moment either. I didn't know about the FF stories with Sub-Mariner though, I'll have to check into that as well. Thanks all for the insights.
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Post by Hoosier X on Jan 12, 2018 14:24:56 GMT -5
FF would be the most obvious place but I don't remember them meeting there ether. I did read that Magneto + Sub-Mariner story in FF #102-105, or somewhere around there and liked it a lot when I was a kid. Perhaps this is just an indication of how young the MU was back then - they hadn't yet had time to go through all the obvious team-ups and battles between even the more prominent characters. Interesting. This would be around the same time leading up to the X-Men becoming reprints too, correct? If so, it may be that Magneto was not a 'popular' enough villain to warrant such a collaboration till this moment either. I didn't know about the FF stories with Sub-Mariner though, I'll have to check into that as well. Thanks all for the insights. I would say that Magneto was still pretty popular because he did pretty good with quite a few appearances despite the fact that his arch-foes didn't even have their own comic for several years.
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Post by String on Jan 12, 2018 14:55:43 GMT -5
Picking back up on their new title, Evanier returns to writing here, picking up from Starlin last issue. #5 has Orion stopping the Bugs' nuclear assault by re-directing the missiles elsewhere with devastating consequences. The new Forager, saddened and enraged, accuses Orion of needing to be more of a god. #6 has Eve Donner, the young woman who has become smitten with Lightray over the last few issues, becoming a focal point for Darkseid when her association with the young New God helps unlock a portion of the Anti-Life equation within her. I liked Evanier's characterization here, especially with Orion. His actions in #5 were horrific but one he felt necessary and duty-bound to perform. But when he's not pleased with his results, it causes him to question his motives. (Spurred on here by Metron, who has more than a passing blame in what transpires here. He takes telling the truth 'from a certain point of view' to a new level). But even Highfather is growing more concerned as Evanier makes the insight that the more Orion grows to hate his father Darkseid, the more in essence he is actually becoming like him. Eve Donner does a 180 turn here. Before, she was almost elated over the impending end of the world but Evanier has her regretting those feelings almost to the point of guilt. He details more of her past, showing why Lightray has been such a positive effect upon her (as well as drawing the eye of Darkseid). But Evanier also introduces the 'dreggs', the apparently undying remains of the Old Gods who infest the deep underworld of Apokolips. Darkseid's raw power draws them to the surface where they are nigh unstoppable. Darkseid manages to halt them, but not because of the reasons he believes. Cullins' art is still decent, even quite good in some spots. His portrait of an enraged grizzly Orion is striking. His battle scenes still aim for Kirby-epic-ness and while they may not just reach that, they're still fun.
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Post by lobsterjohnson on Jan 12, 2018 15:01:11 GMT -5
I read the first TPB of Gotham Central, by Ed Brubaker, Greg Rucka, and Michael Lark. Very enjoyable, and it gives some mystery and awe back to Batman in his occasional appearances.
I've had the book for a few years, and I think I've read it before, but I can't remember why I didn't keep reading the series at the time. I definitely plan to now.
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Post by Jesse on Jan 13, 2018 11:41:49 GMT -5
The Flash #145"The Weather Wizard Blows Up A Storm!" written by Gardner Fox drawn by Carmine Infantino Rarely for me do I find that both the main story and back up in this series knock it out of the park. Usually it's either one or the other and that's even if one of them is particularly noteworthy. Just as rare do I find any of the throw away characters to be noteworthy either but this issue features one of my favorites in this run so far. Generally I find the early Rogue stories to be pretty fun and this is no exception. The Weather Wizard who previously escaped from jail goes on a crime spree and interestingly is thwarted by the Flash with the help of a kid's science fair project. The back up features Doralla Kon another speedster from a different dimension where everyone moves much faster than in our dimension. After helping the Flash stop a bank robbery a series of explosions leads Barry to discover than Doralla is unknowingly causing the explosions having slowed her molecules down to interact with normal people in this dimension and she's forced to return home. A really fun design to the character I'm pretty sure she may be the first female speedster Barry encountered. Plus she wears her hair like Princess Leia!
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Post by Hoosier X on Jan 13, 2018 16:49:21 GMT -5
I think it's time for a Golden Age break! So that means finding a good place to stop in all the series I'm reading. I read Star Spangled War Stories #160 (with the Unknown Soldier) and that was as far as I was going to read before going back to Sgt. Fury. But I decided to read Captain Savage and his Leatherneck Raiders for a while and see how it is. I was just going to read one or two issues, but #2 to #4 is a three-part storyline with the Raiders teaming up with the Japanese to fight a more dangerous common enemy - Baron Strucker and Hydra! I'll talk more about these on the War Comics thread. And I was going to stop Doom Patrol at #100, but it's gotten so interesting what with the introduction of Mento and then the first Beast Boy in #99 and then the start of a Cliff Steele back-up in #100, I had to go on to #101 to see what happened, especially to find out what happens in the Cliff Steele back-up. This seems to be an ongoing storyline as #101 ends with Cliff Steele on the loose after his bad reaction to waking up in a robot body (the back-up takes place right after his accident and after the Chief has transferred his brain). I decided just to stop with #101 and take it up later. (I'll probably talk about this more in the Doom Patrol thread.)
I'm up to Not Brand Echh! #4. And any place is as good as any other place to stop in NBE! It's so crazy! A lot of the writing isn't always funny ... but it's always FUN! What's great is the art! The art is always funny! I love Not Brand Echh! Re-reading #2 reminded me of the 1970s when I had a copy of this ... somehow! And there's a Magnus Robot Fighter parody (called something like Magnut Robot Biter) and he fights the Iron Man parody (Iron Can?). And I had no way of knowing anything about Magnus Robot Fighter. It's still funny. He bites robots! And he thinks Iron Can is a robot! Ha!
I mentioned the art ... it's the Marvel regulars - like Jack Kirby, Don Heck, Gene Colan and lots of Marie Severin - frequently drawing the characters they're famous for, but in exaggerated comic poses. It's great!
I thought Tomb of Dracula #6 was a good place for a break because Marv Wolfman starts writing it with the next issue. But really, the pre-Wolfman issues are pretty good too! And they will look very familiar to anybody who's read very many of the Wolfman issues. Colan has been the penciller since the first issues and inker Tom Palmer came on with #3, so the series had certainly looked like Tomb of Dracula. And the regular supporting cast is already gathering! Frank Drake is in the first issue, and both Rachel van Helsing and Taj first showed up in #3! I'm not wishing to take anything away from Marv Wolfman's accomplishments on TOD, not at all! I'm just pointing out that his predecessors gave him a pretty good foundation to start from.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 14, 2018 0:05:25 GMT -5
I bought my first of the artist-centric EC hardcovers from Fantagraphics, a Jack Davis collection. The care that Davis put into each panel makes me think he took great pride in his work (as seems to be true of the whole EC stable), especially considering the work was expected to be read by kids and then thrown away. That all of his figures exude character without him recycling any characters (at least not that I've seen yet) is impressive.
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